Rajiv Malhotra has has to run down everything that modern India has achieved. Why this antipathy to India? | Twitter – RajivMessage- Tata’s Nano will worsen … 2013-04-28 14-25-45 | Click to go message.

ajiv Malhotra, I have bad news for you!

Too Late

It is a little late in the day to run down Tata Nano.

The Indian consumer has decided that at nearly Rs.2.0 lakhs the Tata Nano is not the deal that Ratan Tata had promised at Rs.1.0 lakh.

Sorry! One less, juicy Indian target, for you to run down!

Surely He Knows

But then, Rajiv Malhotra is not running down the Tata Nano for the lack of consumer acceptance.

He is attacking three things: –

1. How can Someone in India decide that they will design a car for India – in India, by Indians, made in India.

Now this is something that few outside Europe, Japan, and the US have been able to do. Korea alone has done this, after Japan. China’s attempts at car making have been plagued by charges of copy-cat engineering – unlike the Nano.

How can backward Indians do this? They have to be wrong, according to Rajiv Malhotra.

This is his weakest argument. Indians have not accepted the Tata Nano. Instead have decided to go for diesel cars – which return a mileage much better than petrol. Also tax rates on diesel are much lower than on petrol.

The Indian Government misrepresents the difference in tax-rates between diesel and petrol as subsidy on diesel.

In a country which does not produce enough electricity to light up all households 24-hours a day, India must now add electric cars and increase demand for electricity.

Such superior thinking Phoren Maal has!

Assuming that India can increase electricity production, what fuel will it use for electricity production? Coal, which it will have to import? Same dependence story! Domestic coal which has a high ash content? Washed domestic coal, which will make electricity more expensive than it is? Produce electricity using imported natural-gas that will increase import dependence further?

Maybe India should have lower the cost of public transport – and increase public transport? But that is such a unglamorous idea? Will it get him more twitter followers? Will adoring young men and women throng to hear him about public transport? I guess not!

Indians Love China Stories

But if he talks of how China is making great progress in electric cars, he is likely to get more twitter followers? More thronging audiences.

Never mind the fact, that facts go against Rajiv Malhotra’s brilliant ideas for us desi Indians.

One – China is the world’s largest car market. And electric cars comprise less than 0.1% of its car population. Actually, it is 0.06%. This is the great leap-frog, Malhotra-ma-an?

By the way, the biggest story on electric cars in not the car but the battery. Current Lithium batteries are too expensive. Probably aluminum-air batteries will make electric cars feasible. And where is China in all this? Nowhere.

Two – In August 2010, global media was agog with a traffic jam in China that was 10 days long.

Three– China’s electricity production using coal, is making air unbreathable in all major Chinese cities. China is trying to increase solar energy. But sadly!

3 weeks before this great tweet-gyaan from Rajiv Malhotra came our way, China’s largest solar-panel producer, Suntech declared bankruptcy.

Deng’s China has decided that China must give up its pre-Maoist past – and become ‘modern’. Result – China has become a huge market for Hollywood now.

China informs the world that Hollywood film Django is being released in China. Such an important event, no! | ‘#Django’ might get unchained in China’s theaters in May http://bit.ly/12LwGz5 | Twitter – globaltimesnews- ‘#Django’ might get unchained … 2013-04-26 09-06-57 | Click for original tweet.

Shaw Brothers had built, out of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, over the last 70 years, an enviable base of Chinese film narrative. This was based on Chinese themes – Buddhism, Boxer Revolution (China’s version of India‘s 1857 War), Kung Fu, Japanese colonialism in China. These ideas appealed not just to Chinese audiences, but even global audiences.

What’s Language Got To Do …

When you ‘follow’ foreign culture, you also end up losing control over your culture. Like this recent post pointed out, how Hollywood with Kung Fu Panda-II is trying to define the future of India-China relations.

Africa’s adoption of Arabic, Jewish abandonment of their language, have made these cultures into peripheral entities in the world today. In India, government subsidies to English in higher education has extended the life of a colonial imposition to much beyond pragmatic usage.

English has become a sub-religion in India like cricket.

In India …

A very remarkable effect of this in India is the effect English has on Indian minds. For instance, Arvind Kejriwal’s Party, AAM AAdmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.

For instance corruption.

Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the US Department of Defense.

Yet a founder of the AAP tweets on US governance. Not surprisingly, it based on ‘optics’ – but on any critical appreciation of the US.

In the meantime, back to China. China’s prime English newspaper /website, Global Times has decided to inform the world that Chinese will be able to see ‘Django Unchained.’

A major event, I presume.

Two weeks after the Hollywood film Django Unchained was pulled from theaters on the day it premiered on the Chinese mainland, rumors began to spread on the Internet that the film had passed the country’s censorship requirements again and would return to Chinese screens.

Reliable sources said that the first film from director Quentin Tarantino to come to the Chinese mainland will be available for film lovers in May, popular movie information and ticket booking website mtime.com reported Thursday.

“The former edition to be released in cinemas is almost the same as the editions released overseas, which were edited by Quentin Tarantino. That edition had few problems generally, and after the suspension, only some nude scenes were cut from the film. I suppose it will be on screens after May Day,” sina.com.cn reported.

For instance, Arvind Kejriwal‘s Party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.

Out Of Our Minds

For instance corruption.

Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the expenditure by US Department of Defense. US$ 8 trillion is nearly all the money that India has spent on defense in the last 65 years.

Slavery vs Freedom

In March, 1857.

About 1 month before India went up in flames, against the British Raj, the Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS) covered itself in infamy. On March 6, 1857 the US Supreme Court, in a complex judgement, upheld slavery (Dred Scott v. Sanford). This judgement closed the door of US judiciary and stopped any slave from approaching US courts for justice.

In March 1857, while Indians were preparing to battle the British for freedom and independence, the SCOTUS was busy finding new ways to keep slaves – stooped, shackled and in chains.

It took another 100 years of protests, assassinations of leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even a Civil War to change rampant discrimination in the US. But, above all, finally an acute shortage of factory labor and soldiers forced the US Government to withdraw its support to entrenched racism.

This tradition has continued. Most recently, SCOTUS stopped a vote recount that would have declared Al Gore the President – but instead, George Bush became the US President for the second term. Books have been written, news journals regularly compile their ‘favorite’ lists of Worst 10 SCOTUS judgements.

If Arvind Kejriwal and Vinita Deshmukh of the Aam Aadmi Party will take a 2ndlook.

Having said all this, Arvind Kejriwal’s idea of a citizen police force for women safety is a step in the right direction. While the BJP, Communists were all clamoring for more police, more judges, more courts, more costs, Arvind Kejriwal differed.

We cannot have an expanding State. Do we want more and more brutal policemen.

udicial vengeance is dish that is best served cold. It should never be served hot and steaming.

One Big Mistake

Pakistan‘s judiciary has made this, one fundamental mistake. Especially at a time, when restraint was needed. Remember, Pakistan is living up to the fact that for the first time an elected government has completed a full-term.

All the confusion in Pakistan is best captured by a confusing and ill-thought post in the WSJ.com. By my favorite journalist – Sadanand Dhume.

I especially favor him, because no other journalist of any globally or nationally relevant publication writes from a position of such ignorance and lack of understanding.

For one Dhume has not learnt that …

Well Begun Is Half Done

The post starts off with a contradiction.

How does removing a candidate from the election fray promote democracy?

The lesson from Indian democracy is that any one can stand for election. Dacoits, transgenders, actors, filmstars, mobsters – the full range of social strata.

Unlike most of the world’s democracies, especially in the West, that have just 2 parties.

It is only in India that the 2 main parties tend towards towards an arithmetic mean of 40%-60% of the parliamentary seats. The rest are controlled by various regional and fringe parties. Left, Right, Ruralist (Bharatiya Kisan Union), Urbanist (Shiv Sena)

This trend has become even more accentuated in the last 30 years. Remember that after 1980, no party has won an electoral majority on merit. Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 electoral victory was clearly a sympathy vote.

This promotes a vibrant clash in ideologies, programs, values, actions. The resultant clamor leaves India’s English speaking urban chatteratti very dis-satisfied. Not to forget foreign observers.

India’s English speaking urban chatteratti would like to replicate 2-party system like the West.

Dhume asserts

Pervez Musharraf’s recent legal setbacks are Pakistan’s gain. Since Saturday, the country’s former military leader has found himself confined by police to a bedroom in his farmhouse on the outskirts of Islamabad. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.).

Being practical, since Musharraf was not going to win the election anyway, why not arrest him and throw the rule book at him? A sarcastic Dhume intones

Meanwhile, his quixotic hope of once again leading Pakistan was dashed after courts rejected his attempt to run for parliament. Pundits don’t expect Mr. Musharraf’s political party to claim a single seat in elections scheduled for May 11. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

Have You Thunk Of This?

Is it a crime, for any hack with any US publication to dream of winning the Pulitzer? How is it a crime for Musharraf to dream of winning the election?

Misplaced or otherwise?

Dhume has ‘thunk’ about this. And he determines that

A two-week house arrest is far from the welcome Mr. Musharraf expected on his return to Pakistan last month after more than four years of self-exile. In a stream of tweets and Facebook posts, the former commando had painted a picture of a grateful nation waiting to sweep him back to power with a popular mandate. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

The only delusions that exceed Musharraf’s are those of Western media outlets, who have written anything on Pakistan. All those well-trained, untrained, first-rate, third-grade journalists who have come, few have made sense of Pakistan.

Does the US select mentally retarded people as generals, bureaucrats or Presidents. After 50 years of propping military dictators in Pakistan, Dhume thinks it is a lesson that US polity is yet to learn?

For how long has India ruled over China, Tibet, Iran in the last 2000 years? Nil.

America’s Story For China

In May-June 2011, Hollywood released a much anticipated sequel to a successful film. The original film had grossed more than US$25 million in China alone. The sequel was expected to do much more – and finally grossed nearly a US$100 million (official figure – US$91.5 million) in China. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, (an American from Korea) the sequel was named the most successful film made by a woman.

Despotic Peacock Prince Shen plans to turn fireworks into war materiel, manufacturing cannons. Despotic Peacock Prince Shen would like to make his Gongmen city kingdom into an imperial force, threatening Valley Of Peace, home of Po, the Panda. Despotic Peacock Prince Shen soon after usurping the kingdom, captured all the metal and made it into large cannons and guns.

The film – Kung Fu Panda-II.

One of the Top 3 films in China for 2011 – grossing nearly a US$100 million in China. Made by Spielberg’s Dreamworks, released by Hollywood, let us see what this film is actually telling us.

This film shows the Peacock prince (India), as a historical oppressor. Prince Shen, misusing the Chinese ‘invention’ of fireworks-gunpowder for war, using metal and gunpowder for oppression of China. Po, the Chinese Panda battles and defeats the Peacock Prince (India).

The Plot Thickens

This imagery was probably the reason why this film evoked protests and boycott in China. Since Hollywood has such low traction in India, this film has not provoked any reactions in India. Or possibly since most Indians swallow Western propaganda hook-line-and-sinker, having an image of a benign West, drilled into their thinking.

Maya’s Apprentince

Many among India’s leadership have linksto Western citadels ofmaya. Many leaders today ensure that their children are well-grounded in Western culture, education, industry, media academia. These apprentices will then try and take over papa’s fiefdom.

Or as can be seen by the tutoring being given to Ishaan Tharoor by a Western academic.

Is this not how the West wants to keep India & China apart, glowering at each other.

Beijing officials are increasingly worried about India’s ambitions. If you look at the writings of Chinese experts, they refer to Indian military posturing in the Indian Ocean and also to military partnerships India is developing with several countries in Southeast Asia and East Africa. In the public realm, Chinese Netizens’ views of India are very negative. You get the sense the Chinese never seemed to expect India to climb up to the ranks of the great powers. Now, as India attempts to make that leap, the Chinese are very worried of its impact on China’s primacy in Asia.

It wouldn’t first be open war. China and India are building up their interests in conflict-prone and unstable states on their borders like Nepal and Burma — important sources of natural resources. If something goes wrong in these countries — if the politics implode — you could see the emergence of proxy wars in Asia. Distrust between India and China will grow and so too security concerns in a number of arenas. It’s an important scenario that strategic planners in both Beijing and Delhi are looking at.

At the same time, India won’t let itself be drowned in America’s orbit. It’s important for India to have its strategic independence. It has a very long and historically close relationship with Russia, which in turn is close to China. So it’s a little more complicated. I don’t think the Americans have thought very strategically about all of this.

Some like Sunny Singh’s iconic tweet was pure thrill to see someone go down (see image of twitter conversation below). But more than Sunny Singh’s tweet, were all the others who retweeted and favorited this tweet (see slide-show above).

Between the tweeter and the retweeter, more than 100,000 probably saw this one message alone. Now multiply, such a chain into thousands, and that will explain the hysteria around Sunil Tripathi hoax that built up in a matter of hours – and died in a matter of minutes.

Many times a retweet is done to share messages that the user does not agree, approve or endorse. Yet these 27 retweets of Sunny Singh’s infamous message, calls for a look at the judgement of these users. Should such a tweets be forwarded without some kind of qualification?

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